Your Sanity Can Be Crucial Around Family

So there we were, the two of us strapped into the back of the minivan.

The little guy rhythmically kicked the side panel, I glared out the window.

My sister’s eyes flitted from the road to the rearview mirror, with its moody tableau of her 4-year-old and me, to her sleeping infant son strapped into his baby seat next to her. We rolled down the freeway in relative silence, save for a periodic “thump, thump, thump” that sounded to me like a warrior’s drumbeat.

All at once, a petulant voice broke the trance: “IwantaHAMBURGER,” it said, for perhaps the 15th time since we’d left Spokane. My head snapped toward the voice, and I said, most definitely for the 15th time since we’d left Spokane, “They’re closed. That means not open. It’s Thanksgiving. We’ll have turkey at Grandma and Grandpa’s.”

A toddler-sized fist smacked the side of the minivan. My sister sternly yet patiently explained that if a certain child could behave himself, maybe a trip to the Golden Arches could be arranged the next day. Thump! went the hiking-booted foot. Smack! went the little fist.

Grind! went every tooth in my head. How, I wondered, did our parents ever do the holiday thing with four kids to contend with, each of us problematic in our own charming way?

There was my oldest sister, a classic beauty who often looked with obvious disdain on the rest of us mortals; we could infer from her gaze that she was sure her siblings were adopted. There was my next oldest sister, with her penchant for quietly pressing the window-down button in the back of the station wagon, then straddling the door for a 55-mph horsey ride. Yeehaw! There was my older brother, who even in early adolescence liked to start unwinnable car arguments about politics and religion. And there was fat little me, obsessed with roadside cafes and road marts where Hostess products could be purchased for sustenance.

Looking for a positive take on this recent road trip, it occurred to me that should the situation ever present itself, I could probably survive as a prisoner of war, and live through endless mental battles.

It is this particular survival skill, I think, that allows families to get together for the holidays at all, to balance the complex cycle of attraction and repulsion that accompanies sharing feasts and sleeping space with those who share our blood and neuroses. The wisest folks have holiday “escape hatches” ready and waiting, and use them without guilt to get away from loved ones who blithely shun crisp and impersonal hotel rooms in favor of their childhood bedrooms.

Take my mother, for instance, who on the second evening of our visit wriggled into her coat, grabbed her purse and made a beeline for the back door.

“Where are you going, mom?” I asked, ruining her seamless exit.

“To a vigil,” she said, caught. The information sort of hung there.

“Whose?” I said.

She sighed, walked back to the kitchen table where the local newspaper sat, flipped to the obits page, and studied it for a moment. “His,” she said finally, pointing to a blurry mug shot. With that, she left.

We’ll probably never know if she was acquainted with the dead man or if she simply wanted dead quiet. I couldn’t exactly fault her for that, having made my own nocturnal escape the night before.

Many of us indulge in bedtime rituals to help ease the transition into dreamland. Warm milk. Hot baths. Other delights. Slapping on street clothes and driving across town at 10:45 p.m. also works nicely, I’ve learned. Before bed that night, my sister sprung the news that her springer spaniel needed to share my room. I stared at her.

“She’ll bark if I leave her in the van,” she said.

“What’s wrong with the bathroom?” I countered.

“She’ll bark in there, too,” she said.

I took Jammers into my room, closing the door on the sound of the television blaring and my older nephew negotiating for another episode of “Thundarr,’ a pre-bedtime cartoon featuring a emphysema-voiced gray wench with a gnarly forked tongue. Sweet dreams!

The dog panted. Then yipped. The TV blared. The nephew sassed. After 20 minutes, I threw back the covers, donned sweat pants, boots, coat, glasses and a fuchsia headband that made my hair stick up in a fetching way.

“This isn’t working for me,” I announced, stomping up the stairs. I scraped the frozen windshield of my mother’s car, and sped to the home of a sympathetic - and family-free - friend.

Make no mistake. I love my family, and they love me. I am grateful for the times we’ve had together, and look forward to the times we’ll share in the future. As long as they include sound-proof kennels, whine-free zones, or at the very least, copious amounts of mind-numbing scotch.

, DataTimes MEMO: Kathleen Gilligan is Lifestyles & Trends Editor of the Spokesman-Review. Contact her at 459-5481 or kathleeng@spokesman.com

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Kathleen Gilligan The Spokesman-Review